Music competitions aren’t really new, but usually, the goal is to find the best performers in exchange for a cash prize and a chance to make even more great music. The Saddest Music in the World is an eccentric choice to base a competition on, especially during the Great Depression and Prohibition era happening all at once, and it gets even weirder in as a film in the hands of writer-director Guy Maddin, as a beer baroness transforms it into a cultural Olympics hijacked by a strange family who should probably go to therapy for their dual love triangles. Fans of old black-and-white films would love the classic vignette and grain, but rather than wax nostalgically about the past, The Saddest Music in the World takes a more bizarre, ridiculous route on talking tapeworms and literal beer legs.
"McKinney's cheerfully cynical zealousness and de Medeiros' waiflike quality provide some pleasures, but the film's chief glory is Rossellini's inspired, imperiously vampy turn."
— David Rooney
In Depression-era Winnipeg, a legless beer baroness hosts a contest for the saddest music in the world, offering a grand prize of $25,000.
Winnipeg, Canada, 1933. Amputee beer baroness Lady Port-Huntley organizes a competition offering $25,000 to the person who can compose the saddest music in the world.
The way the film satirizes the idea of oppression olympics by having three men make it all about them. Sorry, Serbia.
The other contestants might want to find a family therapist.
Venice
1 nomination
Sundance
1 nomination
